Just watched calzaghe v hopkins again..

Certainly not me, I've state this time and time again. I missed the fight but kept hearing how Hopkins was robbed, so I sat and watched it and after Hopkins taking the first 3 easily I though maybe they could be right. After that though Calzaghe got into his rythm and won pretty clearly in my eyes.

 

I had Calz winning but can see the split decision since may rounds were close and it was hard to judge many of Calzaghes punches. Some were clean and effective many were slappy crap.

 

What you need to understand though is that they still land on the correct prt of the glove and therefore are scored as punches. A jab to the body doesn't do much/any damage but it's an easy and effective way to rake up points.

 

I've been called a helluva lot worse things than absurd, so i'll take that one, cuz imo it was a razor thin decision that could've been scored for either guy. At the time, and the first score you give a fight is always the most important one imo, i had Hopkins eking it out.

 

This is pro boxing, not amateur olympic style boxing were you only have to pile up computer points by hitting the other guy with the correct part of the glove, as you put it.
In the pro game, 3 jabs to the body can be negated by a single clean right hand in terms of scoring the fight, because the clean right hand is more effective in terms of doing damage, and that's what counts here.

 

The correct part of the glove counts in the pros as well, hence the term "slaps", he throws them in the manner of slaps, but they land correctly, on the knuckles, which makes them scoring punches, where-as a slap is just that, a slap. No, a guy who jabs your head off the whole round while you land a handful of straight rights does not change the fact that he is winning.

It's called out-boxing someone, perhaps you've heard of it, hitting them and not getting hit. Paulie Malignaggis hardest haymaker would probaly feel like a stiff Pacquaio left, so does that make Pac-mans left better than Paulies Haymaker?

 

I'm just saying that clean hard effective punches and the impact they have count at least as heavy as pitter pat punches in higher volume. Ofcourse, if one guy constantly lands a lot of light punches and the other guy lands only an occassional clean hard shot, then the other guy is being outscored and outhussled. But i feel that in this fight, Calzaghe missed a lot and landed 2 or 3 very light punches that did no notable damage to every 1 cleaner harder shot Hopkins landed, and in that scenario, i feel you have a pretty much evened up situation.

 

the scoring of the fight depends upon what you emphasize in your scoring. it was a **** fight that was close and that hoplins let slip away (ala his fights versus taylor) by expending most of his energy on defense and holding. calzaghe is still a 'poof' and a slapper but i could see one scoring it for him (and by a few rounds). i gave it to hopkins because his very small punch output was more effective than calzaghe's windmill punches imo.

also hopkins did get hit right on the cup and was entitled to use the time for low blows.

 

Are they effective clean punches? That gets a little more subjective. I am not quarreling with the judges. I can see why it was a split deicision and I can understand the desparity in points.

 

Hopkins didn't let it slip away, he just couldn't do anything else except hold for the whole dam match. If Cortez would have warned him about
holding the fight wouldn't even been close at all.

 

IMO we'll never know whether hopkins could've done more offensively, but i think he could've. he was so worried about getting hit and calzaghe scoring that he waited for what he thought was the perfect counter or situation to let some real punches fly. if he would've in spurts disregarded the defense and holding and got aggresive he would have at least prevented judges from giving rounds to joe simply because they didn't think hopkins did anything. yes he wold've been hit more but he too would've landed and imo that's all he needed to do as his punches were so much more effective than calaghe's that he needed only intermittent spurts here and there mixed in with his defensive strategy. whether hoplins had the conditiioning to do that, it's hard to tell.

 

calzaghe won that fight fair and square i had him winning by 3 rounds

 

To put it in perspective, how Hopkins looked in this fight was the single biggest factor in why Pavlik moved up in weight 10 pounds to chase him. With the benefit of hindsight and seeing how Hopkins performed in the matches surrounding the Calzaghe fight (Both before and after), Joe deserves alot of credit for making people think Hopkins should've retired instead of taking a fight which went on to be on of his biggest wins in Pavlik.

 

Calzaghe won 10 rounds to 2. If you are VERY nice to Bernard you may give him one more round, but any more than that is just plain rubbish.

 

I gave Bhop 4 rounds. Calzaghe clearly won the fight.